New chapter time! This one was completely written this morning.
Leonard thought that Savannah might fall asleep in the car on the way home from the hospital, since she'd spent the parts of the afternoon she wasn't with her mother and sister playing with the toys in the pediatric section. With all the stimulation she'd had that day, Leonard hoped the four year old would be ready for bed by the time they got home and climbed five flights of stairs.
He underestimated her energy. "Can we go outside?" She asked as soon as they got into the apartment and he suggested she put on her pajamas.
"It's dark, you saw when we pulled in," Leonard said, hanging his jacket up.
Savannah pouted. "Play catch?"
"Not indoors, Savvy," Leonard said.
"Is Mommy going to be okay?"
The sudden change in topic caught Leonard off guard. "Mommy's going to be fine, sweetheart."
Suddenly solemn, the girl dropped down on the floor and pulled at one of her socks.
"Savannah," Leonard said, sitting down next to her. "Mommy's absolutely fine. Having a baby is a lot of work, you know, that's why they only let Mommies do it."
Savannah didn't say anything, she just leaned to the side against her father, and he put his arm around her and hugged her tight. "Do you want me to tell you a story before you go to bed?"
She nodded. "Then go get in your pajamas and I'll be in in a minute."
"Can you tell the one about Uncle Sheldon in the ball pit?" she asked.
Leonard smiled. "Aren't you tired of hearing that one?" he teased, tickling her.
She giggled. "No."
"Then go put on your PJs and I'll see how much of that one I can remember. You might have to help me if I forget any parts, okay?"
She smiled. "Okay."
After the following day included introducing Savannah's sister to Howard, Bernadette, Gilda, Iris, Mark, Sheldon, Amy, and Raj without being able to tell them what to call her, Leonard and Penny decided to take action on finding their daughter a name before they made a spur of the moment decision just to get something on the birth certificate and allow her to be released to go home. They weren't too confidant in their ability to come up with a name so quickly, especially when they hadn't been able to decide before. Fortunately, they had some help.
"All right!" Gilda said enthusiastically, setting her board up on the stand to the left of Penny's bed. "Let's name the baby!" Here," she said, pointing to the written names Helen, Hannah, Heloise, Holly, Polly, Paula, and Patricia, "are the names you don't want for alliterative purposes." Below the names, Gilda had a blank line, and then Penny Hofstadter. Penny swallowed at the end part of the baby's name. This daughter would be Penny Hofstadter, and she still would not. "Leonard, are you sure about naming her after me?"
"If it was a boy, we were going to go with Leonard as a middle name," he reminded her. "So for a girl, Penny should be the middle name."
"Hey hey!" Gilda said, clapping her hands together, the marker in her right hand clicking against the wedding ring on her left, "we're not arguing about middle names. We're here to give the little girl in her mother's arms a first name. Suggestions?" She tapped the board with the end of the marker. "If we don't come up with one soon, she'll be leaving the hospital legally named Something Penny Hofstadter"
"I like the name Chloe," Penny said.
"We are not naming our child after a Kardashian," Leonard said.
"I meant Chloe with a C," Penny said.
"Chloe Penny," Gilda said. "To many long E sounds."
"Okay," Penny said. "Maybe something that goes with Savannah, like Sierra or Cheyenne."
"I like Cheyenne," Leonard said. "It kinda has a wild sound to it, like Savannah."
"Oh wait," Penny said. "Do we want their names sounding the same at the start? Isn't that kind corny?"
"I don't know," Leonard said. "Maybe."
"It depends on your preferences, really," Gilda said.
"What are you, Baby Name God?" Penny asked jokingly.
"Baby Name God has a point," Leonard said. "If you thought it sounded corny, then you'll probably always think that. We have to pick something we have no reservations about."
"Now we're talking," Gilda said, pointing at Leonard with her marker. She wrote Sierra and Cheyenne on the board and crossed them out, as well as the previously written names.
"What about Georgia?" Leonard asked after a minute of pondering. "I've always liked that name for a girl."
"I like it!" Penny said. "Our daughters, Savannah and Georgia."
"Oh," Leonard said. "Wait, no, we can't."
Penny gave him an odd look and then got it. "Back to the drawing board."
Gilda squealed at the phrase.
"What about Ada?" Leonard suggested. "Ada Lovelace developed the idea of an operating system, which would fit with us comparing our new relationship with software, plus it kinda has that wild vibe to it, so it would go with Savannah."
"Would it go with Penny as a middle name, though?" Gilda asked.
"What if we made it Nevada?" Penny asked. "Nevada Penny Hofstadter. We could call her Ada."
"Nevada?" Gilda asked. "Like the state?"
"Iris like the flower?"
"Savannah like the grassland?"
"Iris like the part of your eye?" Leonard added, folding his arms.
"Leakey like a ten year old who still wets the bed?"
"It's not...spelled the same."
"Aw," Penny said sympathetically, smiling at her boyfriend.
"Look at her take your side," Gilda said.
"Don't worry Gilda, I'm just doing it so he'll agree with my name," Penny said, giving a dramatic wink.
"I love that name," Leonard said, sitting down on the bed next to her. "What do you think, baby girl? Are you Ada?"
The baby blinked up at him.
"Nevada Penny Hofstadter?" Penny asked, looking down at her daughter. The baby sucked her thumb.
"I think she likes it," Gilda said, coming over to the bed and leaning over the baby. "Whose name is Nevada? Yours! Who's going to get beaten up in school? You!"
Leonard stood up and guided Gilda away by the shoulders. "Go erase the board before the marker sinks in and won't come out like the other one." He walked back to the bed and sat back down, one arm behind Penny, the other resting on his daughter's blanket. "Ada," he said aloud, turning his head slightly to see Penny. She smiled at him. "Ada," she said. "I like it."
Leonard looked up at Gilda's board, where, at the bottom, it now said "Nev(ada) Penny Hofstadter." "That's you," he said gently to the baby. "You have a name."
"And you won't get beaten up in school," Penny said, rocking Ada gently. "People are more tolerant of names now than they were when Leonard Leakey came on the scene."
Leonard nodded down at her. "And we won't make you play cello, either."